


Where Home is Tonight

by samalander



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Archery, Circus, F/M, First Kiss, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-08 17:18:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8854000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander/pseuds/samalander
Summary: "Look, when I say I'm not from around here, I don't mean I'm from Jersey. I'm not supposed to be here. And I won't stay long. But-- but I wanted to meet you. See if you lived up to the hype.""Girl," Clint says, his arrogance somehow more pronounced by his youth, "I am the hype."
Or, Kate falls off a building, and lands in a place where time moves differently.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/gifts).



> _I miss you when you're not here_   
>  _And I don't know if I have the right_   
>  _To wish that you would come_   
>  _Just take me where home is tonight_
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to when-it-rains-it-snows and enigma731 for cheerleading and beta services.

Things happen, in battle. People get hurt and property gets damaged. Sometimes at the same time.

Which is why, if she was being more observant, Kate wouldn't have been surprised when the building under her feet started to rumble and roll. The property is damaged, and at least one person will be hurt. Her.

She should be thinking about the people inside, if there are any. She should be thinking about how to get off the roof. Instead, she observes the moment in a detached way and thinks, "Well. This isn't good."

Several things happen in the next moments, and it takes Kate much longer to understand them than it takes for them to happen. First, her legs start moving. She is running towards the edge of the crumbling building, trying to get off it, get to safety.

Then she's jumping.

And finally, because she wears the name Hawkeye, she's falling. Off of a building. And she isn't carrying any arrows that can help her.

She shouts in alarm as she falls, reaching out to grab something to at least slow her down. But there's nothing to grab.

It takes seconds, and it takes years. Kate falls and she finally understands something Clint told her once, about how falling is peaceful until the ground finds you. The air is like home; it's somewhere safe until it stops holding you. 

Kate hears her name, and turns her head in time to see stars that shatter against her skin.

" _Somewhere safe,_ " she thinks, and then she doesn't think anything else.

* * *

Slowly, Kate becomes aware of a pink light, the kind of light you get when you're looking through closed eyelids. She decides she must be asleep, must have dreamed the building and the fight and the fall. She doesn't move, trying to will herself back to sleep, but something is wrong. Whatever she's lying on isn't her bed. To begin with, there appears to be a rock digging into her back, and the sheets feel scratchy. Kate has the sinking suspicion that she's Somewhere Else, and is about to have to deal with that.

"Hey," says a voice in the not-quite darkness, and it is familiar in its strangeness. "Hey, Lady."

Kate doesn't want to talk to this voice. She doesn't care what it has to say, and she pries open an eye to tell it so.

The world is bright around her, the kind of direct mid-afternoon light that you never get in the city. 

"Lady? You alright?"

Kate sits up, and looks around. 

It's a field. Green. Verdant, even. There's no sound of traffic, no far-away thrum of the city Kate knows all too well. So she's in a field far outside New York and she doesn't know where or when, or how she'll get back.

"Lady," the voice says again, and Kate glances left at the speaker.

It's a boy. A man, a young one. She'd peg him around 22, if she was being generous; there's a certain squareness to his jaw and a worry line across his broad forehead that tells her he's not a teenager, but a kind of cocksure arrogance that she's only ever seen one person over thirty successfully sell. Red hair and a stocky build, and a face that makes her lose her breath. The boy in front of her looks, she thinks, like a younger version of Clint Barton. He looks just enough like Clint that she needs to look twice, and it isn't until she registers the red hair that Kate is properly sure that this _isn't_ Clint. Clint has done many things, but no part of Kate believes for a moment that he would be capable of maintaining hair color like that. Putting on a miniskirt and yelling puns at robots? Sure. Six days a week and twice on Sunday. But the Clint she knows struggles with basic hygiene on good days. No way he would have the ability to color his roots.

"You okay?" Not-Clint asks, offering her a hand.

"Yeah," Kate says, studying him as she takes the offered hand. "Where am I?"

He doesn't ask her if she's okay again, just helps her up. "In a field," he tells her. "Outside Cincinnati, I think. Or Cleveland. Chicago? Somewhere in the middle of America, near a city. The name of that city may or may not start with the letter C."

"Specific," Kate says, dusting herself off and looking around. Her stomach drops when she sees the tents-- large, soaring, striped peaks and valleys. The kind of tents that can only hold elephants and sword swallowers. Circus tents. Kate fucking hates alternate universes, because she has to wonder for a second if this is a circus, or if this is just what buildings _are_ in this reality. She's going to yell at something when she gets home, long and hard. But for now, she turns back to the man who had the misfortune to find her, forcing out the next question with a certain dread as to what the answer might be. "You got a name?"

"Barney," he says, and Kate allows herself to relax a tick. Not a name she's ever known Clint to use, which lends credence to her 'this-isn't-Clint' theory. But it does continue to obscure why he has the exact same shit-eating grin.

Yup, she still hates alternative universes.

"I'm Kate," she says. "Are you with the circus?"

The man -- _Barney_ \-- doesn't puff out his chest, exactly. Nothing so obvious. But he does seem to preen a little. "Yeah. I've got an act. My brother and me."

"Nice," she smiles at him, hoping it'll help him forget to ask why she was passed out in the middle of a field.

"Do you know you're bleeding?" he asks, which isn't exactly a better question. And she doesn't have an answer.

"I was in a fight," she says, knowing it's not anywhere near the truth he's hoping for, nor does it explain the gash in her upper arm which, knowing Kate's luck, has most of a building in it.

"Come on," he says, turning towards the tents. "Lemme get you a bandage. And you can tell me why you were sleeping in a field, and what, exactly, you're wearing."

Kate glances down at her outfit, the purple spandex with the cutouts, and follows Barney.

"Would you believe," she says, grasping for straws. "That I want to audition for the circus?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Sure," he shrugs. "But you'd have to make up an act to be auditioning for, unless you want to sweep up elephant crap."

"And if I like elephant crap?"

Barney laughs at her. "You know, with that outfit? I wouldn't be surprised."

* * *

The boy who is almost certainly not Clint takes Kate to a trailer and gives her a shot glass full of something that burns before taking a look at the cut. It's not so bad, or so Barney says, and Kate manages not to bitch too much as he disinfects and binds the wound.

And, god help her, she likes this guy. He's a lot like Clint. Maybe he's this universe's version of Clint. Who knows. But he makes her laugh, and he smiles at her like she's something special, and Kate would be lying if she said she'd never thought about what would have happened if she and Clint were both 20 at the same time.

And now maybe she's finding out.

"You have a phone?" she asks, glancing around.

"I--" he looks at her strangely. "I mean, there's payphones by the ticket booth. You need to make a call?"

"I will," she says. "I mean, let my people know I'm okay."

So, this is the past. At least ten years in the past.

She's about to ask him about his act, see if this guy is a marksman and maybe weasel a last name out of him, when the trailer door opens and the most bizarre thing Kate has ever seen enters the room.

It's Clint Barton. That much is clear. It's Clint in all the ways that Barney isn't. Except he looks like he's about 14, and he's carrying a baby.

"Barney," this tiny Clint-thing says, his voice on the low side of reedy in a way that belies a recent drop. Like he's just crawling his way out of puberty. "Have you seen Irena? I can't get Viktor down and I need to-- oh." His eyes rest on Kate for a split second. "Sorry."

Kate stands quickly, unwilling to let Clint go, to let this moment pass. "Hi," she says, offering a hand. "I'm Kate."

"Clint," he says, eyeing her hand uneasily. "I'll let you two--"

"We're not--" she cuts across him, and then she laughs. "Is this your brother?" she asks Barney, finally watching the last pieces of this mystery slot into place. And man, if her Clint has a brother, she's going to fucking kill him. How do you have an entire brother and never mention it to the person who you work with? It's just so Barton that she wants to scream.

"Yeah," Barney nods, watching the moment that is hovering between Clint and Kate. She doesn't know what to call it. It's weird. It's weird to see a puppy version of her sidekick, she thinks, but it's something else. It's kinda scary. 

Clint smiles at her, the same sideways grin that she knew when Barney gave it to her. "You the new trap artist?" he asks, clearly studying her outfit. Which, honestly, she resents. It's good to fight in, and good to shoot in. It's not for flipping around without a net.

"No," she says, and then the child in Clint's arms starts to scream.

"Let me take him," Barney offers reaching for the kid, and Clint hands him over. 

"Thanks," he tells his brother, still not looking away from Kate.

Barney nods at Kate. "You babysit this one, I'll get Vik down."

Clint's gaze is odd and hot against her face as he grunts an affirmative to his brother.

She blinks first, looking down at her shoes when she can't keep staring at Clint's bottomlessly blue eyes. Barney doesn't say anything, just turns and leaves, and Kate and Clint let him go.

* * *

They stand in silence for a moment before Kate looks up at Clint again. "So," she says, trying to be cool. "How old are you?"

He sticks his chin out, an oddly familiar gesture of defiance that Kate knows he'll carry into adulthood, assuming that she doesn't outright murder him for being Clint Fucking Barton first.

"Twenty," he lies, his voice guileless and smooth.

"Nope," she shakes her head. "Try again."

"Nineteen," he offers, smiling that spooky half-smile.

"Probably not," she says, watching him carefully.

Clint sighs. "Seventeen. I'll be eighteen in a week."

This is news; her Clint won't tell her if he _has_ a birthday, let alone what it is. It's probably also a lie; she'd peg him at 16 at the most, but Kate decides to let him have this truth rather than continuing the weird reverse-auction they seem to be engaged in.

"You're 21," he tells her, a practiced observation.

Kate barks a short laugh. "You do weights, too?"

"I would never," Clint says, placing a hand over his heart. "Not to a lady."

"Sure," Kate snorts. "Unless she pays you fifty cents and a corndog."

Clint is warming to her, she can feel the shift in his demeanor as he seems to readjust his attitude. "Corndogs are optional," he says and she laughs again. "Wanna get out of here?"

Kate raises an eyebrow. "Out of here as in?"

"As in the midway," he says, looking her up and down quickly. "I think you can get a pair of jeans and a shirt from Jessie, if you don't want to wear that around. You're about her size, and if you don't mind smelling like horses--"

"You don't like purple spandex?" she asks, striking a pose.

"Oh," Clint grins. "You have no idea."

* * *

It's not a big circus, not like the ones that came to Madison Square Garden when Kate was little and had thousands of clowns and animals and lions. It's more a travelling carnival, with rides and acts and a kind of impermanent, rinky-dink feeling that makes almost everything about Clint Barton suddenly make sense.

He wasn't kidding about the horse smell. The clothes that get rustled up stink of hay and sweat and something big and animal and almost harsh. Kate doesn't mind; like every other rich girl in the neighborhood, she had her love affair with horses. _Misty of Chincoteague_ and _Black Beauty_ and all of that, which was great until she realized that there was a required mucking out of stalls. That put her right back off horses. Still, the clothes fit, and she doesn't feel like a bright, purple thumb sticking out in the middle of all of these people.

Clint takes her to a booth where he hands over a dollar for three wobbly darts. "Watch," he tells her, grinning that same grin that makes her want to kiss him at the same time she wants to look away.

There are no surprises at the dart booth; Clint hits three smooth bullseyes and gives Kate the sawdust-stuffed frog that he gets handed.

"How rigged are these games?" she asks, watching a few people tossing balls at milk jugs.

"Very," Clint grins. "But you can beat 'em, if you know how they're rigged."

Kate nods, walking next to him for a moment as they pass a gaggle of children tossing balls into fish bowls and a stand where a skinny boy races up a wobbly rope ladder to show how easy it is, as if he hasn't worked for hours and days to get that balance and confidence.

"What do you do?" she asks, as if she doesn't know.

"I don't do the midway," he says, waving to an older woman with sno-cone dye staining her white apron. "I'm an act."

She raises an eyebrow. "You act like you know everything?"

"I act like I don't want to know why you had an empty quiver and no bow," he counters. "And how my brother found you."

The sun is starting to set, the sky turning red behind the tents, but Kate doesn't want to stop looking at this young, rakish version of Clint. She wishes she were a few years younger, that she could have known her Clint back in the days when he ruled a carnival like this one.

Instead, she reaches down and catches his right hand, lifting it to inspect the callouses she knows he has on his fingers, the telltale bowman marks. Kate finds them, and smiles before she holds out her own hand.

"I heard about the Amazing Hawkeye," she says. "I wanted to see him in action."

Clint stares at her palm, making Kate wonder if he's reading more than her experience there. "You aching for my job? Or Barney's?"

"No," Kate answers honestly. "Look, when I say I'm not from around here, I don't mean I'm from Jersey. I'm not supposed to be here. And I won't stay long. But-- but I wanted to meet you. See if you lived up to the hype."

"Girl," Clint says, his arrogance somehow more pronounced by his youth, "I am the hype."

* * *

"The tilty ship thing?" she asks.

Clint laughs. "Please."

"Fine," she scoffs, pointing to a towering ride that seems to flip every which way. "The zipper?"

"Kate," Clint says, his smile sweet and dangerous. "When I say I have had sex on every ride, I mean _every_ ride. You can name as many as you want. The answer is going to be yes."

She shakes her head. Of course. Of fucking course. She knows it's true, in the same way that she's 99% sure that her Clint fucked someone-- Bobbi, probably-- on his ridiculous skycycle. Probably while in midair.

"The question," he says, smiling at her like sweet poison, "is what you wanna ride."

"Kid," she says, darkly amused at his brazenness and deeply upset by how tempted she is by his offer. "You're too young."

His chin juts out, that damn stubborn stance of his. "I'm not. I told you, I'm nearly 18. Anyway. You think I'm new at this? I'm not."

Their eyes meet, and Kate wonders if it's true, if anything he's saying could possibly be true for her Clint. Not that's he's _hers_. Just, the Clint she knows.

Fuck, she's probably blushing like a schoolgirl. A non-zero part of her considers murdering him again, but if there's a Kate Bishop in this world, she's gonna need this kid in the future, and it doesn't seem fair to take that away from her.

"Listen," she says, trying to think of what she wants him to listen to, what she can possibly say to impress on him that in any other circumstance she would absolutely take him to pound town and back, but this place and this time is all wrong. "I wanna see you shoot."

"You just saw me throw darts," he retorts, a kind of dare in his voice that Kate finds alternately attractive and infuriating. "You need more of a show? You don't like your frog?"

"Oh," she smiles sweetly, reaching up to twirl a strand of hair around her finger like she’s ever been that kind of innocent. "Was that the best you could do?"

* * *

The kid has perfect form, Kate has to give him that. He's better than she was at maybe-eighteen, and nearly as good as he'll be in fifteen years.

They're back in the field where she woke up, having lugged a few straw-filled targets out to shoot at. He's showing off, arrow after arrow piling up in the bullseye.

"Can you do the Robin Hood shot?" She gestures towards the target. "Split one. Down the middle."

Clint looks incredulous as he lowers the bow and glances at her. "That," he says, "isn't possible. I've tried."

"It is," she says, reaching for his weapon. 

Clint hesitates before he hands it over, like he's giving her something special. Which he is. But he presses it into her hand and gives her a couple of arrows, stepping back to watch. Kate sets her feet and raises the bow before the reality of the situation hits her. The wood is smooth and natural in her hand, and she knows this bow. She knows it cause it's her bow, the one Captain America gave her. And the one Clint tried to take back. The one she stole. Her bow.

It's a kick to the chest; it almost knocks the wind from her lungs. He gave her this bow. Clint let her have it, and he doesn't complain. His first bow.

"You okay?" Clint asks, eyeing her.

"Yeah," she shakes her head. "Just-- you know. I'm weird. About bows. This one has history."

"Not really," Clint says, crossing his arms and stepping back so she can nock and draw, breathe and loose.

The arrow flies true, like she knew it would. If falling off a building is peaceful, firing an arrow is zen. It's everything she knows, and everything she loves. It lands center, between two of his.

She fires again, holding her breath until wood splits, a loud crack of thunder in her ears.

"Fuck," Clint says, and she smiles.

"You miss every shot you don't take," she tells him, handing the bow-- _her_ bow-- back. "Learn to do that one. You might need it one day."

Clint shakes his head, still staring in disbelief at the split arrow in the center of the target.

* * *

She shoots a few more arrows, showing off for Clint and Barney, who Clint drags out to watch. They swap a few stories, a few ideas about bow material and fletchings and arrow brands, but Kate keeps it vague. For all she knows, it's 1972 in this world, and she doesn't quite know what's been invented yet. If mentioning adamantium polycarbonite spines would tip her hand, then better to be seen as cagey than to have to answer questions she isn't prepared for.

The boys have to perform-- the Amazing Hawkeye and Incredible Trickshot, in a set of costumes that Kate does her level best not to laugh at. No wonder Clint put on a purple miniskirt when he first started fighting. It was his fucking circus costume.

She stands backstage, the sawdust shifting under her feet as she waits for their intro to start, for the boys to go on. She's promised to watch, to tell them what she thinks.

"Hey," Clint turns to smile at her. "Hey, Kate."

She meets his eyes, smiling at him. "Yeah?"

His eyes shift, his back straightening. "Thanks for showing me the shot."

Kate knows what he's saying, can hear it in his voice. She takes a step forward and presses her lips to his, cupping his cheek gently. She's kissing Clint Barton, and no one can stop her.

"No problem," she says when she's good and done with kissing him. "Any old time."

In the near distance, Barney makes a retching noise, but Kate doesn't care. Clint takes her hand and squeezes it, and she thinks that maybe he's trying to tell her something, though she isn't totally sure what it might be.

Then the music starts, and the lights sweet towards the curtain in front of them. Clint steps forward, and he's gone.

Kate waits for the boys to step into the ring, so the light won't be on her, and she parts the curtain to watch. 

It's a circus show, that's for sure. The kind of trick shooting that she thinks Clint would still do, if he hadn't shattered all the bones in his body a few times and could still do backflips off of moving horses and shit.

The footsteps are slow and deliberate. Without looking, Kate knows who's behind her.

"Took you long enough," she says softly.

"Concussion," America says, reaching for Kate's hand. "Had to get that sorted before I could come and find you."

"Thanks," Kate drags her eyes away from the show. "How are you doing now?"

America smiles at her. "I'm fine. You?"

"I hurt my arm," Kate tells her, touching the area where she's been bandaged. "Woke up in a field. But I'm good."

"That's good," America nods.

"What were you thinking?" Kate asks. "When you sent me here?"

America's smile is sad, like she regrets that she had to cast a portal at all. "Safe," she says. "I wanted to send you somewhere safe."

"That's Clint out there," Kate tells her, gesturing to the ring. "He's like twelve and a half, but he's Clint Barton. That's safe?"

"That's not me," America says. "I thought safe. You decided what it meant."

"I--"

America takes Kate's hand and pulls her toward the exit. "Let's talk at home, Princess," she says, glancing around. "I don't wanna keep everyone waiting. Or have to explain why we're back here."

Kate nods. "I need my stuff--"

"Yeah, of course."

Kate only glances back once as she leaves, wondering if she'll ever be able to tell her Clint what happened here, and if he'll believe her.

They don't talk much as she gathers her things from the Barton's trailer, America watching with a look on her face that Kate doesn't understand. Regret,maybe? Or concern? Indigestion? Either way, her lips are tight and drawn, and all Kate wants to do is leave; is go home.

She lets out a breath she wasn't consciously holding, feeling her shoulders slacken a touch when the portal opens. The familiar stars burst across Kate's vision, and she steps through.

* * *

The others want Kate to stay, to debrief and get stitches and be called Princess, but Kate has other ideas. Once she collects her bow and her street clothes, she heads for the subway. There's something she has to do in Bed-Stuy.

* * *

She doesn't knock, she's had the key to this door for ages. So she opens it, slowly and deliberately and trying not to rile up the one-eyed golden mutt that loves her all too much. It's late; later than she would usually come over. But tonight she's here and it's late and she doesn't care.

"Hey, Lucky," Kate whispers, stooping to give him a scratch behind his ears. Clint's asleep on the couch, the tv flickering on his face as the same six guys who are in every cowboy movie fire guns at each other.

She slips out of her shoes and stashes her quiver and bow on the kitchen counter. The bow feels weird-- the polymer isn't right in her hand, not after having held that old wooden bow. Which isn't to say she wants the old one back-- it looks right in the tv light, hung over Clint's couch like it's guarding his sleep.

Kate walks toward it, but stops at the couch and touches Clint's shoulder lightly. "Hey."

His eyes snap open, his whole body going rigid in shock as he stumbles back to consciousness.

"Kate?" he mumbles, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "The fuck time is it?"

"Late," she tells him, shoving his legs so she can sit next to him.

His gaze is familiar and warm and she shivers at the intensity as he watches her in the tv light of the dark room, waiting for something to happen.

"I--" she shakes her head. "I just got back from-- a place. And I wanted to see you."

His shrug is casual and non-committal, but his brow is furrowed, as if it's hard to understand why she might want to do that. "Here I am."

Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she doesn't want to see him. Maybe she shouldn't be here. But she is, and he is, and Kate turns to her best friend and watches the light dance on his jawline.

"Why didn't you ever tell me that-- the bow. My bow. The one you tried to get back, when we first met," she glances up at the bow in question, her fingers aching to hold it again. "Why didn't you tell me it was yours from way back?"

Clint blinks and reaches back to turn on one of his half-broken ikea lamps. He winces at the light, but finds the remote and turns off the TV.

"Say that again."

Kate sighs. The light makes everything feel harsh and real. She doesn't know if she can do this outside of the dreamy flicker and roll of the movie. "The bow I have, that used to be yours. It was yours from the circus, right?"

Silence. Then, as if he's remembering something very far away and long ago, the kind of memory that you don't access until you get hit by it in the shower twenty years after you forgot it. "Who told you that?"

"You did," Kate says. "I-- I met you. Another you. From a long time ago."

Clint looks pained. "Time travel?"

"Alternate universe."

He makes a face. "That's worse. What did I do? Did I-- was it like Star Trek? Did I have a goatee?"

Despite herself, she laughs. "No. You were 17."

"Oh," Clint winces. "Oh, god. That's worse than the goatee."

"It was pretty bad," she agrees. "But I'm pretty sure that kid I met couldn't grow a goatee if he tried."

It's Clint's turn to chuckle. "Fair enough," he says, touching his cheek. "I'm not so good at it now, to be honest."

"You are aggressively blond," Kate agrees.

He doesn't say anything, so she studies her nails, trying to figure out how to tell him what she wants to say; how to admit to the kiss, to the tension, to the fun.

"You ever have sex on the zipper?" she asks, instead of any of that.

Clint gets that memory look on his face again, long and wistful. "Yeah," he says. "Girl named Jamie. Or Rachel? Jachel. Something. One of them was the zipper, the other was the Gravitron."

"Gross," Kate says, shaking her head.

Clint shrugs. "I was fifteen. You think I'm dumb now, you shoulda--" he stops short, swallowing hard. "I guess you did meet me then. Kinda."

"He was sweet," Kate offers. "But-- he wasn't you."

"Not yet."

"No," she agrees. "Not yet. He had a lot of hurting left to do."

Clint looks at her sideways, as if he's seeing her in a new way, or for the first time. Or just sideways. Who fucking knows.

"Look," Kate rubs her palms over her thighs like she's fixing wrinkles that aren't there. "I just wanna-- I wanna ask you--"

He waits, and Kate imagines he's holding his breath as she leans closer to him, catching his gaze and holding it as she presses her lips to his for the second time that day.

Clint Fucking Barton kisses her back, his hands coming up to tangle in her hair, pulling her close.

When she comes up for air, its as if she's been underwater for an hour, as if kissing Clint has stolen all the oxygen she's ever tried to breathe. Their eyes meet, and Kate wonders if he's thinking what she's thinking, but there's a very slim chance he's thinking _holy crap Clint's tongue was just in my mouth_. Not zero, but small.

"I--" she starts, and Clint shakes his head, gripping her hips to pull her body to his. Kate melts into it, wrapping her arms around his neck and straddling his lap. It's better than talking, she thinks. Better than all the things she's never been able to say to him.

"You good?" he asks when he finally stops kissing her, something Kate thinks is probably like six months or a year later.

"Yeah," she tells him, resting her forehead against his. "We're good."


End file.
